As you may remember from earlier posts, I fitted brass rods down each side of the ship and soldered ‘U’ shaped brass pieces with loops on their ends to these to hold the oars. At the time, I didn’t show how I’d made and fitted these.Once I’d planked the side of the port outrigger and drilled it to carry the oars, I was able to test the design. Unfortunately, the practical application of the design proved to have a major flaw in it! The oars near the bow worked correctly but those towards the stern were hardly raising and lowering at all. The problem was that the brass rod was simply twisting along its length. Something stronger was required.At this stage, replacing the rods with larger diameter ones would have been very difficult as I could not get a drill in line with the holes in the bulkheads. Replacing the brass rods with piano wire seemed like the best option.

The following is a description of how this was accomplished and how the oars were fitted.

Firstly, a bit of brutality was called for. I could have removed the brass rod by cutting it into many pieces but I had to be able to thread the new rod in from one end or the other. On that basis, the old rod might as well come out the same way. I therefore took a hammer and chisel to the planking under the forward end of the outrigger. (Well, a small screwdriver and a pin hammer actually).

PICT_B_1001

This gave just enough room to slide out the existing rod. The hardest part of the job was cleaning off the solder so that the rod would pass through the holes in each bulkhead.The brass rod was 0.8mm diameter so I visited the model shop armed with my digital callipers. Alas, we still aren’t fully metric. The options were in a rack marked in swg. It was a good job I took the callipers because the only conversion from swg I can remember is that 10 gauge is 0.128”. I do know that the bigger the number, the smaller the diameter. As the wire in the 24 swg compartment was bigger than that in the 22 swg one, clearly all was not right with the world. The callipers showed I had two options – 0.71mm or 0.91 mm. I bought a couple of lengths of each, supposedly 22 and 24 swg. When I later looked up the conversion, I found I actually had 20 and 22 swg.When I checked, I found that the brass tubing I had used to drive these rods had an internal diameter of 0.9 mm so I opted to use the 20 swg wire. It did fit in the tube but was a little tight. I was just able to reach the tubing with a 0.9 mm drill and clean it out. (I could have used a 0.95 mm drill if necessary but the 20 swg wire now fitted through OK).It was now a case of re-fitting the ‘U’ shaped oar supports. As I said above, I didn’t previously show how these were made and fitted so I’ll explain it here.There are 44 oars in total and each piece holds 2 oars, so I needed 22 of them. Time for mass production techniques. I made up a highly technical jig; 3 nails and a 2mm drill bit.

PICT_B_1002

There is a second hole for the drill bit just behind the right hand nail. Moving the drill bit to that hole allows the final loop to be completed.Now repeat 10 times and we have enough oar supports for one side.

PICT_B_1003

The next problem was how to hold the pieces in place whilst I soldered them. Time for another jig:

PICT_B_1004

It’s looking a little singed in this picture as it had already been used to fit the pieces to the original brass rod, but it didn’t deteriorate any further than this.This is how it was used to hold the pieces whilst I tacked one corner in place. After I had tacked all the pieces in place, I was able to solder the other corner of each piece properly. Finally, I then re-soldered each of the tacked corners properly. (Yes, I overdid it on a couple which fell off and had to be re-fitted). This is actually an earlier picture and shows a piece being fitted to the original brass rod.

PICT_B_1005

The next problem was how to hold the oars in place. I had thought of fitting rings round them on either side of the oar ports or either side of the drive pieces, but I wanted to be able to remove the oars. Although this would probably have been possible with this method, I could see it would be difficult. The second problem was how to stop the oars twisting. If the oars were static, there would be no problem in aligning all the oar blades, but as soon as I started to move them, they would rotate out of line. Finally, the instructions show the blades being formed by simply carving and sanding the ends of the 2 mm dowels. I am intending to make separate blades for the oars. That means that the oars will have to be fitted from the outside.I finally hit upon a spring clip to hold each pair of oars.

PICT_B_1006

Each oar has a small groove filed across it (the one in the middle of the picture is my template with the two alternative positions marked in pencil). The spring fits in a hole drilled through the top of the bulkhead, just inside the covered section of the outrigger. The other end lies along the inside of the oar ports, passing over the forward oar and under the rearward one. It rests in the notches in the oars and not only holds them in place, but also stops them rotating. A half twist on the oar allows it to be slid out. Replacing it requires the use of some pointed implement to push the spring aside, but is very easy to do.This picture shows the oars in position:

PICT_B_1007

I am very pleased with the way the oars are now held in position. It is possible to bend the brass clip that holds an individual oar so as to position the oar as required. In this way, it is possible to align all the oars. If you’re building this model, even if you’ve no intention of making the oars move, I would recommend fixing a rod down the outriggers and soldering oar supports to it.

This picture shows the ship with the port oars in position:

PICT_B_1008

After taking this picture I noticed that oarsman No. 7 is wilting a little, but generally they’re not too bad.

Next step is to plank the other outrigger and drill some more oar ports.

Planking the side of the starboard outrigger was pretty straight forward, however the next job was a bit more of a challenge.Each bulkhead along the centre section has a seat on it to accommodate two oarsmen. The seats are angled to allow the inboard oarsman to reach his oar. These seats are made from 2 mm thick planking whereas the lower deck, the base of which is level with the base of the seats, is made from 1 mm planking. The plans show these meeting edge to edge, but it seemed more appropriate to rebate the inboard ends of the seats to fit over the edges of the lower deck.The outer edges of the seats are notched to fit round the upright section at the outboard ends of the bulkheads. As a final complication, the lengths of the seats vary, shortening towards the bow and the stern.As I had planked the forward section to cover up the ‘works’, the front seats would have to be further cut away to fit over this planking, so I left these until later. I cut a piece of wood to the correct angle for the ends of the seats and used it as a guide to cut the pieces to length, numbering them from 2 onwards in matching pairs.I then cut the slots in the ends of the seats, using a couple of pieces of wood as stops and nibbling away the material in between.

PICT_B_1101

Next job was to rebate the ends.

PICT_B_1102

Seats, seats and more seats!

PICT_B_1103

The following picture shows the seats glued in place. It also shows the front seats which are rebated along the front edge to fit over the decked area at the bow.

PICT_B_1104

I could now varnish the inside of the hull and plank the tops of the outriggers. Only a slight amount of tapering was required at the ends of the first couple of planks, subsequent planks were full width.

PICT_B_1105

We will now hold a little test to see if you’ve been paying attention!How many oars does this ship have?How many oarsmen does it have?How many oarsmen sit on each seat?Now a little bit of maths, how many seats are required on each side?

If you’ve been paying attention, you should have said 44 oars, one man to each oar and two men sit side by side on each seat. That’s 22 men and 11 seats each side.For those of you who have scored 4 out of 4, here’s the tie break question. It’s much harder:

Can you tell me why I fitted 12 seats on each side?

The last outrigger section is planked across the full width for the helmsman (helmsmen?) to stand in. When I came to plank this section, I found I had glued two seats on the bulkhead at the forward end of this section, despite the fact there are no oar ports here. I had to pry them off in order to plank this section.As I said earlier, all the seats were different lengths, so I numbered them. The penny still didn’t drop despite the fact I had a pair of seats numbered 12! The only excuse I have is that I made 22 ‘normal’ seats and then made another pair for the front.

PICT_B_1106

This was another instance where there is nothing to support the planks at the aft end. I had to glue a support strip across the front of bulkhead 16.This picture also shows the completed planking on the tops of the outriggers.It’s now time to plank the upper deck.

Thanks for looking in gents. The next instalment is more or less as Amati intended but the one after that is another example of 'I did it my way'!

Clare: I did manage to get the ship back to front when I first dry-fitted the bulkheads so perhaps I'm still trying to sail it in reverse.

Just as an aside, I decided that it would be possible to make an RC oar powered ship using servos to drive the oars. I could vary the stroke of each side to steer it so the oars would always be synchronised. To row backward, you just have to reverse the signal that raises and lowers the oars.I tested the idea using the microprocessor that's now fitted in Vanguard and it seemed feasible.

The planking of the upper deck is relatively straightforward. The area to be planked is completely flat forward of the helmsman’s position, but curves up the stern aft of this point. The planking material is 3 x 1 mm. It appears to be ramin and was very good quality. After a good soaking, it was very easy to bend it up the stern. Even allowing for the fact that I purchased some alternative planking material for the lower deck, I seem to have a surprising amount left over.

The centre section of the deck is supposed to be a series of ‘Doors’ which I assume means hatches. These are represented by gluing 1 mm square strips on the planking to frame the individual hatches. The picture on the box shows the outer-deck section the same colour as the hull, with the centre, i.e. the hatches, a very dark colour. My intention is to leave the deck section its natural light colour and stain the hatch section a fairly dark colour.

The first plank was the only one that presented any challenge. The centre uprights on the bulkheads prevented me from simply clamping it down. I had to bridge it with pieces of scrap wood and put clamps on either side. That stopped me putting a straight edge along it whilst it was clamped, so I had to align it to pencil marks one bulkhead at a time.In the following picture, it’s under there somewhere!

PICT_B_1201

Once the first plank was in position, it was an easy task to complete the planking.Although the upper deck would not have been caulked, I opted to try one of the tricks I’ve seen suggested to represent this as the joints between the planks were virtually invisible otherwise. Using a lead pencil on the edge hardly showed but a black felt tip pen worked well. (The pencil trick would have been OK at a smaller scale). I only applied this to the outer planks, not the centre ones which will form the hatches. In retrospect, it could have been applied to all the planks without a problem.The following pictures show the final planks being glued into position and the aft section curving up the stern:

PICT_B_1202

PICT_B_1203

The plan view seems to show some form of edge strip around the deck area, but there is no indication what this is or how it is applied anywhere else on the drawings. Although the planking was acceptable down the centre of the hull, some form of edging was certainly called for at the stern. I used two of the ramin strips, set edge on, to form a border plank.

PICT_B_1204

The front edge of the deck was trimmed to length and a border plank was added here also.Although these planks were easier to bend sideways than the hull planks, they still needed a good deal of persuasion at the stern.

PICT_B_1205

The border was sanded down in height to leave it approximately 1 mm proud of the deck.The hole in the deck needs to be enlarged and framed. It’s for the backstay which loops around the centre pillar of the bulkhead at that position.

The raison d'être for these ships is the ram. The ships were designed to be as fast and manoeuvrable as possible so as to be able to ram the enemy ships, whilst avoiding being rammed themselves. The crew were not expected to engage in combat with their opponents crew.Only one actual ram has survived, now known as the ‘Athlit Ram’, and although it is from the second century BC (a mere 200 or so years too young) it’s the one I’m attempting to copy. Click http://www.vizin.org/projects/athlit/solution.html here to view the Athlit Ram website.(Note: Only after I’d made my version did I see that the top front of the ram is flat. (The pictures on the website showing this are a more recent addition.) I found out when I finally managed to view the 3D version.)

Although I posted a picture of it earlier, this is what it looks like:

PICT_B_1301

The ram on the model pictured on the front of the box doesn’t really have a lot in common with that pictured above!

PICT_B_1302

From the very start, I intended to see if I could manufacture something a little closer (well, a lot closer actually) to the Athlit ram.I don’t think the material supplied in the kit will be of much help though!

PICT_B_1303

I started by cutting out some paper patterns. These showed two things. Firstly, I needed to trim the keel away under the bow until it was flush with the planking. This allowed me to make the base of the ram flat at the very front. Secondly, the side cheeks that cover the prow needed to extend much further forward, almost to the very front of the ram.Time to move on to some more sophisticated materials for a prototype - Cardboard and Sellotape.

PICT_B_1304

PICT_B_1305

This showed that I was on the right track. It was now a case of replicating this using brass sheet instead of cardboard.I started by making the strip that runs along one side of the hull, round the front and then back down the other side. It needed to be deeper at the front than along the sides to make the top and bottom faces of the ram curve upwards and downwards respectively. Towards the rear it had to be exactly the same depth as the hull sides. I then cut a piece for the bottom of the ram. I could make this slightly oversize as it would be easy to trim it later.Clamping these two pieces in place whilst I soldered them together proved to be impossible. The only way to hold them seemed to be by hand. One pair of very warm fingers later, I had one back corner tacked together. Having done that, I was able to mark where the other back corner joined and tack that off the model. From that point it was easy to solder the pieces together on the inside.Making the top piece was the easiest of all. The inside ‘V’ that fitted round the prow would be covered by the side cheeks and the outside edges could be trimmed later. Tacking this piece on re-heated my fingers. Fortunately, over the years, I think I’ve either burned most of the nerve ends away or accumulated a high asbestos content in the skin on my fingers.I couldn’t reach all the way inside to the front to solder this piece on, so the front section had to be soldered from the outside. That doesn’t represent a major problem, only that of cleaning off the surplus solder later.The two side cheeks were more difficult to shape. The bottom edge has to be curved both to allow the piece to splay out at the rear and also allow for the upward curve of the top of the ram. Once I got them somewhere near right, I soldered the front edges of the two pieces together and then finally filed the bases to fit. Again, I had to solder these in place from the outside.One final job on the basic construction was to add the middle blade. I made the two sides separately as there is only a minimal protrusion of the blades where they cross the front.From then on, it was a matter of trimming the ram to shape and adding some decoration.I started by filing the back edges to shape, together with the tops of the side cheeks. I then soldered on some thin pieces of brass to form the edging strips. There are some decorative pieces on the side cheeks and also on the sides of the ram. I made these using brass sheet and brass wire and again soldered them in place.Once I had completed the decoration on the sides of the ram. I finished the shaping as the sides need to be faired into the decoration.

The following pictures show the (almost) finished ram.

PICT_B_1306

PICT_B_1307

It’s rather too shiny at the moment. I believe ammonia can be used to tarnish brass so a bit of research is called for. I’m sure a time machine will also do the job but the only one I have access to can only do 60 mph. (That’s 60 minutes per hour). It needs a series of holes drilling to pin it in place. You can only just make out a few of them in the picture of the Athlit ram, but they’re clear in the 3D model. At the moment it’s held by one pin up into the keel at the very back. That’s all it actually needs for practical purposes, but I’ll add the others when the hull is varnished and it’s finally fitted.